Brazil

SAINT-DENIS, France -- Fans will samba the night away in Rio de Janeiro or grind Paris to a horn-honking halt from the Eiffel Tower to the Champs-Elysees, depending on what happens here today.Either way, the world will slow down for a bit while France and Brazil meet to crown soccer's 16th World Cup champion at the Stade de France, just outside Paris.Organizers could not have asked for a better scenario for the 64th match of the 33-day tournament: The popular four-time champs from South America against a host nation with its fingers crossed for its first title.

Sea-Land Service Inc. has added Baltimore as a port of call on the service to South America that it provides jointly with Transroll, a Brazilian steamship line.When the two lines began the service to Brazil in November, the vessels called on two U.S. ports, Elizabeth, N.J., and Jacksonville, Fla.Baltimore was officially added to the service this week with the arrival Monday night of the Gallant at Seagirt Marine Terminal. The ship unloaded 41 containers and four rail cars.Two weeks earlier, another ship on the joint service called at Baltimore as part of a trial run. That visit apparently went well enough for the lines to add Baltimore as a regular port of call.

PASADENA, Calif. -- To the Swedes: Nice tournament, guys, but good riddance. Next time, bring an offense.To the Bulgarians: We're all happy for you, and nice job against Germany, but no one wanted to see you beat Italy yesterday. Bulgaria in the World Cup final? No offense intended, but that's like planning a gourmet meal and winding up eating a pizza.No, if you're going to hold a World Cup in your country for once in your millennium, you don't want interlopers in your final. You don't want pretenders.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- It was the president's brother on the line, asking for cash. "Hey, get me two grand," Genival Inacio da Silva demanded of an alleged gambling kingpin, according to transcripts of wiretaps published here this month. The telephone intercepts were part of a federal police operation known as Checkmate, which has led to the arrest of dozens of people in a slot-machine distribution scheme. Checkmate is just the latest in a chain of theatrically named scandals that have come to dominate Brazilian headlines and tarnish President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, sometimes called the Teflon president because of his aptitude in shaking off scandal.

PARIS -- Ivan Zamorano, the Chilean striker, had a dream recently about these World Cup finals. Chile would play Brazil; Chile would win, 1-0.Zamorano's subconscious did get one thing right about yesterday's second-round game at the Parc des Princes: Chile scored a goal. The problem was that Brazil scored four, and easily could have scored more.Not much went wrong for the defending champions on a cool, intermittently rainy evening. After losing to Norway on Tuesday in a game that mattered mostly to the Norwegians, the Brazilians started slowly, hearing jeers from their fans throughout the first 10 minutes, and then gradually acquired ramming speed, confidence and plenty of space to show off their remarkable individual skills.

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. -- That rush of warm air felt around the Los Angeles area yesterday was not another high pressure system adding to the heat wave, but the collective exhaling of the U.S. World Cup team after learning it had advanced to the second round of the tournament.After losing to Romania on Sunday and placing third in Group A, the U.S. players had to wait while a plethora of possibilities played themselves out before they could be sure that their 1-1-1 record would send them through to the round of 16. The team knew by mid-morning that it had made it, after the Mexico-Italy and Norway-Ireland games had ended in ties.

SALVADOR, Brazil -- Welcoming patrons to his stylish new restaurant here, Elon Carneiro Coelho's eye was caught one recent evening by the bust of an ancient Greek healer brooding in a wall niche across a narrow cobblestone street."

NEW YORK -- Ethno-musicologists will recognize the cadences of Brazilian tribal drumming.Fans of Afropop will identify the shimmering, interlocking lines of the West African guitarists.And those who pay attention to lyrics will appreciate the terse phrases, the sudden shifts of perspective, the rhythmic rightness of the lines.But none of them will be able to call "The Rhythm of the Saints," Paul Simon's long-awaited new album being released today, exclusively their own.For a poet and a one-man band whose aural palette now includes pan pipes, talking drums and other elements of world music, this represents something of a victory.

MALDONADO, Uruguay -- In soccer, it's possible to be slaughtered 1-0.But that score also can be the result of a tightly played game between well-matched teams. And that explains why the U.S. soccer team walked away from Thursday night's loss to world champion Brazil feeling it had proved something.hTC Little more than a year ago, Brazil beat the U.S. by the same score in the 1994 World Cup.Yet in Thursday's America Cup semifinal, "The game was there for the taking -- it indicates how far we've come," said forward Eric Wynalda, the team's leading scorer.

HAVANA -- When the clock finally ran out on an 87-84 loss for the U.S. women's basketball team, also bringing to an end a 42-game winning streak that began nine years ago, Brazil's Maria Paula Da Silva did cartwheels across the court at the Sports City Coliseum.Brazil coach Maria Cardosa, who has suffered through defeat after defeat to the United States for 21 years -- 16 as a player, and five after moving to the head of the bench -- briefly considered joining her star guard before deciding to settle for the gymnastics that were being performed in her heart.